Maddie Richards Gift Set: Two Mystery Novels

By David Bishop

Maddie Richards is an efficient and resourceful detective with a secret wish that she could handle her messy personal life as well as she handles her work life. As a homicide sergeant for the Phoenix, Arizona Police Department, she has one of the highest solve rates in America. Her success leads her chief of police to assign her a serial killer case. Some sicko the press calls the Beholder is killing beautiful women. Her chief describes the case as “a career maker or breaker, get me?”
She has an ex-husband she still cares for, but who was bad for her and her ten-year-old son. Her widowed mother who lives with her is both a blessing and a trial. And, oh yes, her ex-husband has married an extremely wealthy and politically connected woman who cannot give birth. So, Maddie’s ex is filing a motion to obtain permanent custody of their son, citing the risks attendant to Maddie’s police work endanger the boy.
If that were not enough, the brother-in-law of the chief of police is using his position as an administrative assistant to sexually harass Maddie. She could file a formal complaint, but the good-old-boys network in the department is watching how she handles the situation.
Further complicating Maddie’s life is two love interests: Gary Packard, a hunk who recently moved in across the street, and Lincoln Rogers, a confirmed bachelor, who lives thousands of miles away and works for the FBI.
As the case develops Maddie learns that the victims all wore the same bra size. She must decide if this is merely a coincidence or a criterion the killer uses when selecting his victims. She also finds that each of the victims is somehow connected to the Phoenix police department. This realization isolates her further as she must pursue the killer without disclosing this theory to her department because, if her suspicion is correct, the Beholder would learn she is closing in.
As the story races toward its climax, Maddie is betrayed by those closest to her, and she begins to believe her own name may be on the killer’s list.

DEATH OF A BANKSTER
Maddie Richards finds herself in the middle of a case which starts with the sights and sounds of just another murder investigation. A woman claims her husband, a banker, was murdered. Later, Maddie learns that the woman had begun divorce proceedings the day before she claims a bullet had taken her husband from her. The murder greased her path to not only ending her marriage, but negating any need to divide their marital property. Then the wheels come off and nothing about Maddie’s case is what it seems.
Ryan Testler, last seen in David Bishop’s novel The Woman, guest stars. Maddie’s son, Bradley, and her mother, Rita, return as the stable underpinnings to Maddie’s life. On her day job, Maddie continues to work her strange and twisting investigation. At night, she is increasingly taken with the most unusual and fascinating man she has ever known—Ryan Testler. On his day job, Ryan carries out his latest mission in his usual over-the-line style. Along the way, the sparks between Maddie and Ryan get hotter and hotter while they struggle to resolve their conflicting views on justice and whether the end can justify the means.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bishop
• Release date: Feb 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463883402

David Bishop

David is a former financial consultant, public speaker and nonfiction author who now devotes full time to writing mystery and thriller fiction. His plots are grabbers, the characters fascinating, and the storylines fraught with twists and turns. Come along for a ride, you'll be glad you did.

Book preview

Maddie Richards Gift Set

Box Set One

David Bishop

Contents

Maddie Richards Gift Set

Novels by David Bishop

Acknowledgments

The Beholder

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Death of a Bankster

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Who Murdered Garson Talmadge

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

About the Author

Note to Readers

Maddie Richards Gift Set

THE BEHOLDER

And

DEATH OF A BANKSTER

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By

David Bishop

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents have been produced by the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, or to any actual events or precise locales is entirely coincidental or within the public domain.

This e-book is licensed for your personal entertainment only, and may not be resold or given to other people. If you wish to share this eBook, or any portion of its content, with another person or other people, please purchase additional copies for each such person. If you are reading this eBook without having purchased it, or without it being purchased by another for your reading, you are in violation of the author’s rights. If so, please discontinue until you have purchased your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.

Copyright © 2011 by David Bishop. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portion hereof, in any form. Any use whatsoever without the express written permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or printed editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials or other illegal use.

Please visit David Bishop, his books and characters at www.davidbishopbooks.com You may contact David Bishop at [e-mail]

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Cover designed by Paradox Book Covers & Formatting

Republished 10 th February 2019

Created with Vellum Created with Vellum

For current information on new releases visit:

www.davidbishopbooks.com

Currently Available:

Mysteries currently available – By Series:

Matt Kile Mystery Series (in order of release)

Who Murdered Garson Talmadge, a Matt Kile Mystery

The Original Alibi, a Matt Kile Mystery

Money & Murder, a Matt Kile Mystery Short Story

Find My Little Sister, a Matt Kile Mystery

The Maltese Pigeon, a Matt Kile Mystery

Judge Snider’s Folly, a Matt Kile Mystery

The Year We Had Murder, a Matt Kile Mystery

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Maddie Richards Mystery Series (in order of release)

The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery

Death of a Bankster, a Maddie Richards Mystery

Linda Darby Mystery Series (in order of release)

All Linda Darby stories, co-star Ryan Testler

The Woman, a Linda Darby Story

Hometown Secrets, a Linda Darby Story

The First Lady’s Second Man, a Linda Darby Story

Heart Strike, a Linda Darby Story

The Ryan Testler Character Appears in: (order of release)

The Woman, a Linda Darby Story

Death of a Bankster, a Maddie Richards Mystery

Hometown Secrets, a Linda Darby Story

The First Lady’s Second Man, a Linda Darby Story

Heart Strike, a Linda Darby Story

Jack McCall Mystery Series (in order of release)

The Third Coincidence, a Jack McCall Mystery

The Blackmail Club, a Jack McCall Mystery

Short Stories

Money & Murder, a Matt Kile Mystery Short Story

Love & Other Four-letter Words: a Maybe Murder, a novelette by fictional author Matt Kile, as written by David Bishop

 Scandalous Behavior, a novelette by fictional author Matt Kile, as written by David Bishop

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The Twists & Turns of Matrimony and Murder, by David Bishop

To be notified when each of the above titles are available:

Send your email address to, [e-mail]

For more information on books and characters visit: www.davidbishopbooks.com

Acknowledgments

As I often do, I got by with a lot of help from my friends and relatives who did yeoman duty as readers, including Jody Madden, Kim Mellen, John Logan, Beth Eggers, Frank Evans, Diane Kilby, Mary Lee, Ellie Brooks, Dick and Toni Jaskowitz, Dick Houser, Joe and Ruth Anne George, and several members of the Augusta Books and Bubbles Club. My thanks also go to Steve Jackson, Claudia Jackson, Terri Himes, Steve Himes, Lorraine Hansen.

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The characters who reside within this story were made smarter, tougher, sexier, or more villainous through your unselfish assistance. They join the author in saying thank you.

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to my first grandchild, Brandi Bishop, and Jody Madden, whose love and encouragement continues to inspire me, my other grandchildren, Kristopher and Kaia, my sons Todd and Dirk, all my nieces and nephews, and various other in-laws and out-laws. I wish to also add a group of unrelated young adults I recently met, Kirby, John, Brad, Eric, Carl, Jamie, Matt, and Michael. These wonderful young people collectively reassured me that the future of our great country is in very good hands. Without the faith and encouragement of so many, this book would not exist.

Chapter One

From the air, Maddie Richard’s neighborhood would appear as a checkerboard pattern with medium-sized, thirty-to-forty-year-old stucco tract houses with black asphalt driveways that softened in the summer sun. The yards populated with succulents, scattered palms, and a few old elegant jacaranda trees with their fernlike leaves and soft purple flowers.

On the ground, today had been a good Thursday in Phoenix, Arizona. There had been no homicides and the temperature had stayed below one hundred. Maddie liked the heat or more accurately, she hated the cold.

She had picked up her mail and walked halfway up the driveway when her cell phone rang. She considered not answering, but that was not an option. She was a cop working homicides.

We’ve got another dead woman, her partner, Jed Smith, told her. The killer left the same message as with that black chick last week, ‘I’ll Get You, My Pretty,’ printed in the woman’s own blood. Cinch up your britches, Maddie, the media will be dogging us on this one.

The smell of simmering taco meat enveloped Maddie when she opened her front door. She tossed the mail on the hall table, jotted down the address Jed gave her and hung up.

After putting a smile on her face, she joined her mother and son in the kitchen. His lips tasted minty. He usually had to be reminded to brush his teeth before bed, but on taco nights he always brushed before dinner, saying it gave the tacos more zing.

Mommy’s gotta go back to work, honey, she said, trying to keep it casual.

Ah, Mom. You missed tacos last week, too. You promised.

You know I’d rather be here eating tacos with you. I’m really sorry.

Despite only being in the fifth grade, Bradley had already learned that murderers were rarely considerate enough to ply their trade during normal working hours.

Maddie’s widowed mother, Rita, who lived with her and Bradley, stood at the stove stirring the taco meat. Thwack. Thwack. The large kitchen spoon her mother had seemingly been carrying since the Jurassic Period struck the side of the pot. A goober of taco sauce splattered her apron, joining the remains of many meals past. Strands of the old woman’s salt-and-pepper hair hung limp about a face lined by living and her husband’s death. Still, a contented face, Rita lived to help those she loved. Thwack. Thwack. Her spoon never struck in solo. The aroma from the meat reminded Maddie she had not eaten since breakfast. She took the wooden spoon, worn smooth by her mother’s coarse hand, scooped out some of the spiced ground beef and nibbled it over the sink.

Rita, who had let herself go after her husband died, rested her hands on her well-padded hips. I kinda understood your father being a cop. The man loved it. God, rest his soul. But I don’t get it with you. You’re a woman.

There was really no reason for her mother to get it when Maddie sometimes wondered why herself. She knew being a woman had helped her climb in the department, but she also knew she had done the job. Hell, more than done the job. She had kicked ass.

Her mother still criticized her some about talking rough. To Maddie’s way of thinking, a woman could elbow her way into police work, but not a lady. Cop work was traditionally a man’s gig, and the women who shoved their noses under the cop boy’s tent were met more with tolerance than welcome. Maddie preferred to think of her sister officers as embattled women striving to prove themselves. Even to the point of sometimes taking on a masculine swagger, a choice Maddie had resisted. She liked walking as a woman, the looks from the men. Even the remarks, well, some of them anyway. She didn’t want to be one of the boys; she just wanted to be equal, knowing that to accomplish that she would have to be better than equal.

You need to find a good man and get married again, her mother said with bias dripping from each word, this time for keeps. Thwack. Thwack. In the kitchen, the spoon punctuated everything Rita considered profound.

Maddie liked the idea of having a steady man in her life. She wanted the sharing, the intimacy, not necessarily the husband label. A perfect relationship would include that, but her view of the world didn’t require perfect.

We’ve already had this conversation, Mom, too many times. Maddie mussed her son’s hair. Gotta go. Bye, you two.

The heat outside pressed through her clothing, moisture immediately leaching from her skin. The sun was gradually surrendering to a darkening sky that would soon shroud the city like a net dropped over a wild animal. She started the engine, twisted the AC dial to full blast, and aimed all the vents at her face.

As Maddie backed out of her driveway she saw Gary Packard, her new neighbor from across the street, walking toward his mailbox. At more than six feet he moved with grace, his height mostly in his vee-shaped upper body.

Gary smiled and waved. Maddie waved back as she drove away. So far, this had been the extent of their exchanged pleasantries. Maddie’s mother had learned through the neighborhood women that Gary was single or at least lived alone. Maddie knew nothing else other than he wore tight Levis, had a dimple in his chin, and drove a pickup truck. Yet, her police instincts told her he was a city boy.

Maddie’s father had started his police career as a New York patrolman in the days when cops walked a beat. When the family moved to Arizona, the Phoenix police department put him in a cruiser. His retirement seven years later lasted only two years. After a lifetime of rich doughnuts and poor cigars, he died. The death certificate read natural causes, which Maddie knew translated to boredom, no hobbies, and no self-identity without a badge pinned to his shirt. He had wanted his daughter to become a doctor.

A doctor would be home eating tacos with her son, Maddie thought, not to mention making a hell of a lot more money. Instead, as a homicide cop she was on her way to the scene of a murder.

As she sped toward the interstate, the light cones from each street lamp passed crawled up the hood of her car, pierced the windshield and streaked across her face.

Maddie’s first thought about the case had been that the sick memo should have read, I got you, my pretty. "I’ll Get You, My Pretty" was the wrong verb tense unless the killer had meant it as an open-ended warning for killings to come.

At this week’s detectives’ meeting, Maddie had learned that Folami Stowe, who now appeared to be the first victim, had been a poor, pretty, single black girl with one arrest for prostitution. Tonight’s victim, Abigail Knight, was a rich, married white woman. Serial killers rarely mixed victim types, but that departure hadn’t changed her partner’s mind. Jed remained convinced that both killings were the work of the same fruitcake, and Jed’s instincts were generally right on.

She accelerated down the on-ramp into the concrete funnel known as Interstate Fifty-one. The serried hills to the west were already fading from view as the night tugged its dark blanket under the city’s chin.

Chapter Two

An armada of police cruisers, their sirens muted, and other official vehicles that responded to mayhem were idling in the street, immune to the parking rules of the road.

The tires on Maddie’s five-year-old Taurus rubbed the curb as she came to a stop while leaning sideways to get a full view of the Knights’ home—strike that, estate—on Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley, Phoenix’s ritzier side of the tracks. Brick-like pavers framed the driveway in an alternating pattern.

After shutting off her engine, Maddie could hear the cries of coyotes, scattered in the bordering hills, voicing their objections to the static sounds coming from the squad-car radios. As she stepped out of her car, she noticed that the lining of her size-ten beige, linen blazer had begun to fray from rubbing over the short-barrel Smith and Wesson .38 she carried on her hip. She had tried a shoulder holster, but rejected it after Jed said it made her look like she had three boobs.

Jed walked toward her, his biceps sagging a bit from age. He took pride in the fact that he still worked out regularly on a heavy bag that hung in his garage, while remaining unconcerned with the leathering of his face. One of the lingering differences between the sexes, the time spent caring for the face.

Got a score in the D’backs game? she asked. Jed was a big Arizona Diamondbacks fan.

My car lost the signal coming up the mountain. We’re playing the Dodgers. The only thing I got to hear was a pre-game interview with one of the spoiled visiting superstars. The jerk was crying about having to play five away games in the next six days. Those guys make a gazillion playing a kid’s game, have women throwing their panties at them while they’re on the road, and only have to work about eight months a year. And they think us regular stiffs ought to feel sorry for them. Those pricks have no clue.

Maddie ended Jed’s sports editorial by asking, Who called in tonight’s main event?

A couple of young studs in heat, they hike over the back hill on their way home from summer ball practice. Over this way, Jed said, nodding his head toward the end of the cul-de-sac, I’ll show you.

The backdrop of the city’s twinkling lights made the neighborhood a beautiful place to live, but a bad place to die and death was what had brought them here.

What’s the latest on your ex-husband’s efforts to snatch Bradley? Jed asked as they walked.

Curtis’s attorney just filed for a review of the custody agreement. My lawyer’s sending me a copy.

What grounds could he possibly have? I’m sorry but your ex is a real butt.

Curtis just got hired to do color commentary for the Phoenix Cardinals on radio. He got that by marrying the station owner’s daughter who, rumors say, is barren. So he’s using her to get near football and she’s using him hoping to get a child. Her only problem, Bradley already has a mommy with a gun. My attorney says Curtis’s argument is that he’ll give Bradley a more stable and safer home life than he’ll get being raised by a divorced homicide sergeant. Odd hours. Threats from unsavory characters, blah, blah, blah. Do you ever get the impression that except when they need us, civilians see cops as the enemy?

Maddie, my love, you’re way too beautiful to be so cynical. Now, what are you going to do about Curtis?

Fight the son of a bitch, what else? Listen. We need to get into tonight’s show.

Right over there on that hill, Jed pointed. If they were old enough to remember Fats Domino, the boys would likely call it Blueberry Hill, ‘cause that’s where they found their thrill.

Maddie had long ago learned to just grin at her partner’s hackneyed humor. Two boys, she asked, right?

Jed held up two fingers. It’s private over there, a great spot for peeping.

What did the boys tell you? Maddie asked.

Mrs. Knight regularly left the drapes open while she undressed. The teens carried binoculars in their backpacks.

You buy that?

Yeah, boys banging up against their hormones. According to them, she’d gyrate her shoulders in front of a big mirror on her bedroom wall. Last night they think she saw them. I guess it freaked them a little. They said she walked right up to the window wearing nylons and heels and crooked her finger beckoning them to come to her. After spending the day challenging each other’s stones, the boys decided if she did that again tonight they’d knock on her door and offer to leave their cherries.

Maddie smirked. Then Jed added, The boys say they never saw her with anyone.

What time were they up here? Maddie asked, taking Jed’s arm and turning him back toward the crime scene.

About seven, summer practice ran a little late. They had stopped for a slushy.

And that’s when they saw her?

That’s their story. But this time she was on her bed, naked and dead. And—

Wait a minute, Maddie raised her hand. How did they know she was dead if they saw her on the bed through binoculars?

Well, there you go, Maddie. That’s what I asked.

She gave him her look that meant: and the answer is? She didn’t use her go-to-hell expression—that one required more shoulders than eyes.

At first they fantasized some man having swizzled chocolate syrup all over her, but when they didn’t see a man and she didn’t move, they eventually threw a few pebbles against her window. When she didn’t react, they called it in on their cell phone. I had them take me up there so I could check the magnification. Looks like it went down about like they said. What surprises me is that the boys didn’t just run off. Or call it in anonymously.

Where are these boys now?

They were already late so, after they told me what they knew, I let them go home. They’re both shook up about what will happen when their parents find out the boys were using their fathers’ binoculars to peep. Then again, the boys weren’t peeping so much as Mrs. Knight was showing. Their behavior would have been stranger if they hadn’t watched.

Look at that, Maddie said, pausing as they neared the crime scene. The frigging place looks like the mall at Christmas.

The house had been cordoned off with the department’s standard yellow crime scene tape, as if anything could make a murder scene appear standard. Neighbors, a few holding drinks, had their bellies pressed against the tape, their faces splashed with red from the taillights of one of the TV trucks at the curb, the driver sitting with his foot on the brake. There were more than the usual number of cops and crime scene investigators milling about. And the media was scurrying around like ants at a spilled picnic.

A moment later a circling news chopper began tossing its light beam around like a UFO searching for a landing site.

I got a hold of the vic.’s husband, Dr. Mills Knight, Jed said. He’s some big-shot shrink. The department used him on a murder case back about fifteen years, before the doc became too expensive. I met the guy then, can’t picture him, but I expect I’ll recognize him. He’s in San Diego attending a symposium, whatever the hell that is, probably a five-dollar word for a conference. He’s been over there two days. The Knights have no children and their parents are all dead. The victim has no other known relatives. The doc has a sister in Tempe. That’s all the background we’ve put together so far.

When does the husband get back?

He should be on the road about now. Claims he can’t think of anyone who would want to kill his wife. We agreed to meet here around midnight. After that he’ll be at his sister’s place. When we’re buttoned up here, you go on home; I’ll do the paperwork. Give Bradley a hug for me. While I wait for the doc, I’ll stop to see the boys and their parents. Prep them for being witnesses when we catch this perp, not that they saw all that much, and try to convince the boys to keep quiet about all this until then.

Fat chance, Maddie said. This will be number-one tomorrow when those boys see their buds. Jed smiled and nodded.

Katie Carson, a hard-driving reporter from Channel 12 Eyewitness News, came toward Maddie. The two women had met in the sixth grade and remained close friends, although their differing lives and careers had mostly kept them apart. In today’s world, hair, clothes, makeup, and voice training were part of the entertainment side of the news. Katie had always had a great shape, and now dressed like a fashion model. She had also smoothed her voice until it poured over you like expensive body lotion.

Sergeant Richards, what can you tell us? Katie asked, speaking loud enough to be heard over the hubbub. She then thrust her microphone at the side of Maddie’s face as if she might reply through her ear.

I just got here, KC. Maddie and Jed ducked under the yellow tape. Then Maddie turned back, squinting into the glare of the cameras, Maybe more on the way out.

The officer at the door had the pressed shiny look of a recent academy grad. A trimmed shock of carroty hair reached below his service cap. He looked scared. No. Not scared, more like overwhelmed. Could be it’s his first murder scene. His responsibility: only cops get in.

Death has its own energy field, and that force drew Maddie through the open double mahogany doors. Part way up the winding stairs, she passed a large oil painting of a blond woman with an innocent face and the kind of body you see on the fronts of hotrod magazines.

She also picked up a faint fragrance: Lavender, she thought.

As a homicide cop Maddie had learned that people came in all gradations of bad. Her instincts told her that what waited at the top of the stairs would be as dark as bad got.

Chapter Three

Death was life’s stop sign. When it came a person had no way of knowing that whatever they were doing at that moment would be the last thing they would ever do. Given the conditions under which Abigail Knight had died, she had likely welcomed the stop sign, probably begged for it.

Maddie’s black flats nested into thick white pile carpeting while she and Jed watched the medical team unwind the duct tape that had been wrapped clockwise around the victim’s wrists, pinning her arms to the brass rods of her headboard. Abigail Knight’s legs were bound to the foot posts using nylon stockings, probably her own.

Maddie inhaled, drawing the stench into her nose but she refused to flinch. Some cops used various gimmicks to trick their senses. Vapor rub under the nose, for one, but Maddie felt that keeping her smeller unencumbered came with being a homicide cop. Sometimes what stunk was a clue. Time would tell if the lavender she smelled on the stairs would mean something.

Maddie’s first close look told her that Mrs. Knight was the woman in the picture on the stairway or, more accurately, she used to be.

Abigail Knight’s face—oh God, not her face exactly—the skin from her face had been peeled away, as a chef peels the translucent outer flesh from green seedless grapes before the stuffing of a game hen. And even that had not ended Abigail Knight’s horror. Her lips had been cut off, leaving her teeth a red-splashed miniature picket fence. Maddie gasped, she had forgotten to breathe.

There was no blood spray near the victim’s head, but gravity had extracted enough to blur the stark contrast between her raw flesh and the white silk pillowcase on which her face had finally been allowed to rest. The absence of spray from her head said that Abigail had been dead when her face was peeled.

Murders like this stuck to your heart like barnacles to the hull of a ship. You just knew they changed you, knew they had to, even without knowing how or how much. Maddie fought off her shallow breaths with deeper ones and willed herself into her job.

Blood, sweat and the contents of Abigail’s freed bowels had congealed to form a foul-smelling puddle that hugged the low points of her body like cold turkey gravy. Maddie breathed through her mouth while studying the area around the bed and the rest of the room. A second picture of Mrs. Knight hung on the wall across from the door. Despite the mutilation of the person, the killer had not defaced either picture of the victim.

The killer had knocked her unconscious downstairs, Maddie reasoned, or, if he were an expected paramour, maybe upstairs in the bedroom. If on the main floor, the killer had to be strong enough to carry her limp body up the stairs. The fierce wolf that emerges to do these bestial killings is always stronger than that beast’s host body.

A man cleared his throat. Maddie turned and saw the uniformed officer she had seen outside: Carrottop. Everything from his highly polished shoes to his shirt looked new. His pale face and the pink splotches that mottled his neck, instantly told her how he was feeling. He attempted a smile but his mouth stayed tight.

She walked over and stood beside Carrottop. There isn’t a person in here who hasn’t felt the way you do right now. We’ve just learned to control our reactions. Go outside for a few minutes, away from the crime scene. Breathe deep. If you barf, stay away ten more minutes.

There’s no problem, Sergeant … I’m okay.

Officer, we don’t need you upchucking on any evidence. Move your ass.

You got a heart of gold, Jed muttered, then grinned at Maddie.

She made eye contact with the county’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Jonathan Ripley—the detectives called him Rip. He lowered his eyelids some and slowly shook his head. Abigail Knight’s severed breasts had not been found.

Maddie raked a hand through her hair; it flopped back into place. She stared blankly at the medical examiner, her face betraying her question. Exsanguination, Rip said. The lady bled to death.

Maddie ran her dry tongue across her drier lips. Dr. Ripley went back to moving as though he needed three hands.

She walked into the adjourning master bath with its double-sized hot tub and overhead skylight. For a moment she fantasized living and loving in such luxury. After shaking off her twinge of guilt about having such thoughts in the middle of such carnage, she drifted downstairs.

In the kitchen she opened the refrigerator and the dishwasher; the fridge held nothing unusual and the dishwasher was empty. On the counter she found a statement from Marta’s Maid Service and a bill from a local dry cleaner. The documents had not arrived in an envelope for neither had been creased.

Through a window she saw a few cops and media men looking at KC like it was a hot night and she was a cold beer, and they wanted to take a swig.

Maddie went back upstairs. The thermostat in the Knights’ master bedroom had been pushed down to 66 degrees. The cool felt good mixing with the heat pouring in through the front door, but she doubted a woman would strip down to her underwear in such a low temperature.

Be sure to dust this thermostat for prints, Maddie called out to one of the crime scene techs. He nodded.

She had not seen any flowers or plug-in air fresheners to explain the lavender-like fragrance she had discerned on the stairs. Maybe Marta’s Maid Service had sprayed something before leaving. Or perhaps the killer had both sweetened and cooled the air in his private abattoir.

On a settee near the bed a black garter belt was tangled up with a lace pushup bra. Five inch black heels lay tossed on the floor, the kind with straps that wrapped part way up the leg. The laces darkly decorated the carpet like anorexic snakes that had been caught playing the children’s game, Freeze. The nylons may have also been on the settee until the sicko used them in a manner for which they were never intended. And, last but not least, a neatly folded red babydoll nightie waited on the vanity.

If Mrs. Knight had already been wearing the babydoll, the woman would have tossed it aside as she had the garter belt and bra, not folded it. And if she slept naked, the nightie wouldn’t be out at all. Could the killer have been neat enough to fold it after removing it from her unconscious body? Abigail Knight might have known her killer, put the red babydoll out for later, and met him wearing the black heels and nylons.

Bill. Maddie said, summoning over Bill Molitor, the head of the evidence team. After telling him to check the babydoll for trace evidence, she asked, What’s this ring marking on her nightstand? She held her hair against her forehead and bend down for another look. It’s too big for an ordinary cup or drinking glass, she added, coming upright to face the department’s main man for such things.

If what made it is still around, we’ll find it, he said, reassuringly.

Your guys find any blood that might not be the victim’s? Jed asked.

No. Not yet anyway. We have found a few hairs, but no blood trace. The killer had to have gotten some blood on himself but he didn’t clean up here. We’ll process the hairs.

Maddie’s first rule of homicide said that common thugs screwed up everything. The second rule said that the brainy killers rarely messed up on the big stuff. This meant that when dealing with premeditated killers, the prominent clues were often misdirection. If this were not true, as Jed had once put it, they would not be eligible for membership in the brainy killers’ club.

Maddie worked homicide cases the way she and her son put together jigsaw puzzles. First you build the border, then you keep moving and refitting the inside pieces until they formed a picture.

Jed had found a couple of Abigail Knight’s outfits in plastic bags hanging on a rod inside her closet. His description of the items—such as a man can describe women’s clothes—matched up with the dry-cleaning bill Maddie had found on the kitchen counter.

In Mr. Knight’s closet, Maddie saw a third picture of the dead woman in a silver and black frame gracing the top of a built-in teak chest of drawers. In this picture Abigail Knight had posed naked, sitting on the floor with her hands braced behind her and one knee raised. The pose reminded Maddie of the shiny silhouette of a woman featured on the mud flaps of a million trucks crossing America at any moment. Next to the picture, a large musical instrument, she thought a double bassoon, sat in a matching teak stand.

Back in the bedroom, she walked up to Dr. Ripley who was bent over the body. He arched his back and said, Same set up as the black woman last week. The killer had taped her mouth to keep her quiet. Then later after she died he yanked the tape off her mouth, pulling off her lips along deep cut lines. The gauze stuffed down her throat, he shined his light into her torn mouth, muffled her screams while she died an excruciatingly painful death. The black woman last week was Sergeant Brackett’s case right?

Brackett told me, Jed interjected, that Folami Stowe, the black woman, had been hit over the head from behind with some blunt object that hadn’t been found at the scene.

Apparently, Maddie said, Folami Stowe knew her attacker or trusted him for whatever reason. That sound right to you?

Her partner nodded, small nods.

Same here, Rip said. The killer bludgeoned her from behind then tied her up. The blood spray indicates he removed her breasts while she was alive. The minimal blood near the head said he waited for her to bleed out before skinning her face. He would have wanted her dead so her head would be pliable.

What Maddie hunted wasn’t human, at least not in the ordinary sense of the word. This had been the work of some creature that had gnawed through the membrane separating our world and some parallel universe of ogres. What frightened Maddie most, each year it seemed more of these beasts were burrowing through to visit our side.

Bill, she called to the crime scene head, you were at the Stowe scene last week, right? He nodded. What’s different?

We haven’t wrapped this one up, he answered, but there are differences in how they were tied. This victim has a brass headboard and footboard. Stowe had a mattress and box springs on a metal frame.

What about the knots?

Same. Left over right, Bill Molitor said, probably a lefthander. That should cut your odds a bit.

Or a smart right hander, Maddie retorted.

Ah. Now that’s why you get the big bucks, Bill replied.

The block-lettered macabre memo, I’ll Get You, My Pretty, written in blood above Abigail Knight’s bed leaked downward at the same descending angle Maddie had seen in the photos from the Stowe murder posted on the board at the station.

Abigail Knight’s lips, attached to a strip of bloody tape, had been found inside the bathroom trash basket that had been brought in and left beside her bed. The perp. had apparently moved the can there to avoid scattering his victim’s facial skin as he patiently peeled it away.

This Asshole’s definitely meticulous. Maddie wondered if he was a neat freak in other aspects of his life. Was he neat enough to have folded his victim’s nightgown after removing it from her body?

She turned to Bill. Was there a wastebasket next to Stowe’s bed?

That one from the kitchen, he said, this one’s from the master bath. It likely means nothing more than here the kitchen is downstairs and he had this victim upstairs.

According to the body of knowledge on serial killers, an organized and meticulous scene indicated that the killer was intelligent, did not live near the victim, and that his killing was not the fruit of sudden impulse. Also, more than ninety percent of history’s known serial killers have been males—white males.

Maddie knew this was not racial profiling, but fact-based profiling wherein race functioned only as an element, not a cause.

On the basis that it would take years to twist sick thoughts into such a complex plan of mutilation, Maddie pegged the killer’s age at plus thirty and, based on the history of serial killers, probably less than fifty-five. It was a wide range and she would hold it loosely, but a girl had to start somewhere.

Logic argued the killer would not have known these two victims from such different worlds. One lived in a neighborhood where Spam would be served, while the other dined on prime filets. So how did the perp get into such different homes? There were no signs of forced entry at either house. He could have offered Folami Stowe money for sex to get into her place, but the image of Abigail Knight did not include the likelihood of selling her body for cash. Then again, if the teenage boys were telling the truth, the woman’s libido was stuck in overdrive.

The guy could be Brad Pitt gorgeous? If so, given the sexual proclivities of his victims, he might have been invited into their homes. Or, he could be Quasimodo with a different approach? Is he threatening or charming his way in? None of these questions came with answers so she tucked the whole mess into a quiet corner of her mind.

This guy likes ‘em pretty, Jed said after moving close. On the other hand, that could be a coincidence. The killing techniques are the same, but that’s where the clear similarities end. Folami was black, Abigail white. Do their skin colors tell us something about the killer’s perversion? Could it mean the next woman to go under his knife will be Hispanic, or European? Asian or maybe Native American?

You think he’s working the skin color palette? Maddie said to paddle down Jed’s thought stream. Are white and black women now safe?

We won’t find those answers here tonight, Jed said, but hopefully we will find them.

What the murder scene had provided in the way of answers, well, information anyway was that the killer had not hurried. The butcher had waited for each victim to bleed out from chest wounds before skinning their faces. Forensics had found no sign of fresh semen at the Stowe scene, and neither Folami nor Abigail had been roughly penetrated by anything. Those were facts in evidence. But these facts were piggybacked by another question: Did the killer take the breasts as trophies to be used for his own self-gratification at some later time, in some safer place?

Maddie knew that not much more could be done tonight. Rip needed to get Abigail Knight’s body to his lab. She wanted to go home and hug Bradley, tuck him in, and thank her mom for yet another night of extra duty.

Let’s get outta here, partner, she said quietly while Jed was close. You can catch the rest of the D’Backs game. Have your nightly cigarette, and go to sleep. They started walking out.

Not for a while, Jed said, I’m off to see the boys and their parents, then back here to meet Dr. Knight. In between, I’ll touch base with the neighbors; there’s only four close enough to have likely seen anything. Tomorrow I’ll check on the ones farther out.

Carrottop was back on duty at the front door. His stomach acid had eaten right through the shine on one toe of his new blacks. The reporters all stood mesmerized, their human eyes and unfeeling camera eyes following the gurney as it bumped through the cracks in the sidewalk and driveway. This reverent spying continued until the dark body bag had been pushed into the back of the M.E.’s van.

The distraction had given Maddie and Jed time to get near their cars without being badgered by the media.

How did you know I have a cigarette at night before going to sleep? Jed asked.

When we talk late, I hear you inhale.

He saluted her sarcastically and opened the door to his car. Nasty habit. I’m through with it, but it’s not quite through with me.

Maddie pulled around Jed as he sat fiddling with his radio dial; she imagined in search of the final innings of his beloved D’Backs playing the invaders from Southern California: Los Angeles Dodgers.

If these two murders were connected, and the early signs screamed they were, the department would combine the cases. When that happened, Maddie wanted the lead. A rumor had been circulating that after the end of the year the department would break homicides out as a separate operation apart from the violent crimes unit where it now resided. The detective who solved this case would hold the brass ring for heading up the new division. Her competition was hard-ass Doyle Brackett who had put in ten years working homicides before transferring to vice, compared to Maddie’s current run of six years. Brackett had a hedgerow of gray hair that stood as erect as a regiment of eager recruits and, by contrast, a loose nose that drooped like it had no bones. He was also a charter member of a fraternity as old as fossils, the police department’s good old boy’s network.

Maddie wanted that promotion. She was also scared she might get it. Scared because the more demanding job might further her ex-husband’s argument that Bradley would be better off with his father and his father’s rich new wife. Then again, the prominence of the promotion and the higher pay grade might help her defeat Curtis’s claim for the custody of her son.

Does the shit ever end?

Chapter Four

Maddie struggled to return to the quiet, peaceful darkness. To sleep more, maybe even fantasize her ex-husband beside her, his hand on her naked hip. His laughing as he always did when her hair tickled his groin. She imagined their visit five year ago to the coast of Oregon. The memories of their night run through some bramble to reach the beach, dropping onto the sand. His licking the red welts the thicket had raised along the sides of her thighs. Why didn’t we hold onto it? Why do so few relationships grow from being in love to loving?

A moment later she came fully awake, the sounds of the early wind dragging the thorny spines of an ocotillo plant across the outside stucco wall of her bedroom. She squinted to read the bright red lines on her digital clock: 4:05 A.M.

She threw back the sheet and light blanket, and rolled out of bed eager to get to her first stop: the Folami Stowe murder scene. Last night, after leaving the Knight crime scene, she had stopped at the station to copy Brackett’s report on the Stowe homicide and pick up the key to Stowe’s apartment. She wanted to see the scene with her own eyes. Engage her senses. She also wanted to be more knowledgeable than Brackett about both the murder scenes. She wanted the assignments over both cases.

She gathered up one of her regular cop outfits. At least she did until she found her underwear drawer empty other than a white thong bright against the blue drawer liner. Tonight’s chores would need to include washing some panties. She had never worn a thong to work. That would change today.

In the bathroom she took out her curling iron, looked at it, put it back, ran a comb through her hair, sprayed, brought the medicine cabinet mirror forward to check the back, and decided she’d go with the way it looked.

At four-forty-five, she backed out of the garage. The stars, which not long ago had been scattered like diamonds on a black velvet cloth, were being faded out by faint peach and purple streaks dashing from the horizon to tinge the clouds.

Gary Packard’s house was still, but the neighborhood was beginning to toss and turn. A woman was shuffling down her driveway. Her housecoat clamped shut with one hand; she leaned down with the other to pick up last night’s throwaway newspaper. She didn’t look toward the street as Maddie drove by. The plumber who lived two more houses down had his head inside the back of his truck. He waved over his shoulder without bothering to see whose car was going by. The whole scene explained why the police rarely found people near a crime scene who had actually seen anything.

Maddie turned into a crosswind that began quarreling with her partly opened rear window. She hit the button to close it, then turned into a corner convenience market to gas up and get some of the fresh coffee they made each morning before the go-to-work rush hit.

Five minutes later, she had a full tank and a big foam coffee cup with a sip lid in the bottle holder built into her dash. The only thing left to do before hitting the road was to push the button to start her Hoagy Carmichael CD. She had first heard Hoagy sing while watching an old Humphrey Bogart movie with her mother, who later bought the CD. Maddie had played it the first few times out of respect for her mom, but came to like the singer’s friendly voice, unusual melodies and catchy lyrics.

Phoenix’s few downtown high-rises grew smaller in the rearview mirror as Maddie neared the outskirts of Folami Stowe’s neighborhood. There were no tattooed home boys out this early, only a few men with gaunt faces holding handmade signs, their stick arms shrink wrapped in skin: WILL WORK FOR FOOD. People long ago labeled homeless, but that only referred to their lack of a residence. Their faces spoke silently of despair and hopelessness, and that referred to a loss of dignity, the wasting of a soul.

Chapter Five

Folami Stowe’s last residence, if you didn’t count the slab in Dr. Ripley’s medical examiner’s office, was a tired white stucco multi story studded with air-conditioning units poking out of windows, their whirling fans a tin orchestra in search of a tune.

She parked across the street in the lot of a restaurant with boarded up windows, except for one which featured a tube light shaped to spell out Eat-at-Joe’s. The walls heavily disfigured with gangland graffiti claiming turf no one should really want.

The number nine on Folami Stowe’s apartment had lost its top nail and swung into a six. But Maddie had found it easily, the strands of yellow crime scene tape across the front door as obvious as a red nose on a clown.

The unlocked door screeched as if to warn the neighborhood that a badge carrying invader had breached their outer defenses. After giving her heart a moment to calm, Maddie ducked under the upper strand of tape, stepped over the lower one and entered the last known address of Folami Stowe. She eased the door shut. The room had the warmth, stuffiness and silence of a tomb.

Folami’s apartment, the size of a couple of walk-in closets stapled together, had one of those sprayed ceilings that looked like dried cottage cheese, and was furnished as poorly as an honest politician’s future. Maddie’s nostrils filled with the smell of cat pee brought to full blossom by the heat the apartment had swallowed since the prior day. The room held nothing obviously personal. No family pictures, nothing that said, This was the world Folami Stowe held close.

Time and pollution had left the walls in the manner that a thousand steps saddened light carpeting. A crossword puzzle sat open on an unfinished oak coffee table. The words filled in were all foods and spices. Maddie closed the cover, Culinary Crosswords. She shook the puzzle book, nothing fell out.

A thick, green glass ashtray wedged open the bedroom door. The center of the mattress looked black, although the dried blood would be revealed as deep burgundy with the advancing sun. A small-screen TV with a rabbit-ears antenna sat on a flimsy TV tray that wobbled when touched. Nothing indicated Folami had a roommate other than Stinky—the missing cat.

The temperature-set dial on the window air conditioner pointed at normal. This was different than the cold temp setting on Abigail Knight’s thermostat. The push-in power button read off.

The department’s file showed that Folami’s boyfriend, Ronald Walker, had found her body. Walker had claimed he stopped by after spending the evening at a sports bar with four other men. Doyle Brackett’s file notes said Walker worked as a long-haul trucker while chasing his dream of becoming a chorus-line dancer. Because murderers rarely reported their mayhem, and because a quick check of Walker’s alibi seemed solid, Brackett had told the boyfriend he could leave on his next run, but to check in with the department upon his return.

The end wall of the bathroom held a turquoise porcelain tub, circa 1950s, its sides ringed with scum. Maddie lifted the cover off the toilet tank, this toilet made more than one hundred without a finding.

The shelves in the medicine chest supported a bottle of aspirin, a jar of petroleum jelly, tweezers, a few lipsticks, and an eyelash curler. The first drawer next to the sink contained a hard brush and one of those long-toothed, plastic combs—bright purple. The second drawer had been reserved for a hair dryer. And the bottom drawer was crammed full of enough condoms to verify that Folami Stowe’s one arrest for prostitution had understated her career.

Jed’s sick humor would say that large a number of condoms meant that Folami had led the hooker league in at bats.

The media had written up the probability—the media’s, not the police’s—that Folami Stowe had been killed by a crazed trick. That conclusion instantly doomed the story of her death to one short column on page twelve. The death of Abigail Knight, however, was another matter. The public’s appetite for the gory details became voracious whenever the violent among us took one of our rich or famous. The department called it juice, and cases with juice got a disproportionate ration of police resources.

Maddie took a double take when she entered the kitchen. Had she somehow drifted into The Twilight Zone? The kitchen was as neat and clean as the rest of the place was messy and dirty.

Maddie was startled when the nagging warble of an alarm clock came through the paper-thin walls from the adjoining apartment. The alarm stopped and music came on. The neighbor’s female but not feminine singing voice joining in.

Brackett’s case file identified the tenant in number eight as Natalie Comstock, a middle-aged nurse’s aide at Saint Joseph’s Hospital. Ms. Comstock had not been home the afternoon Folami’s body was found and for the standard reasons, mostly excuses, Brackett had not come back. The department, the media, and society had already boiled Folami down to the nub: a dead hooker, maybe a dead black hooker. The end.

Maddie stepped out of number nine, crossed the small landing and knocked.

Ms. Comstock, a bony woman with a burger-sized mouth came to the door in a pink bathrobe and white bunny slippers with matching pink ears. She stopped just inside her door, her hips shifting to one side.

I hardly knew Folami, Comstock said, sliding a barefoot out of one bunny and stacking it on top the ears of the other bunny. The girl was quiet and polite. That may not seem like much to you uptown folks, but for this neighborhood that’s a home run. Now, I gots to get ready for work, so if you real cops is like them ones on TV, this is where you give me your card and tell me to call you if I thinks of something else.

Maddie smiled and gave her the card, then went back inside Folami’s apartment. She examined the black vinyl recliner and its lacerated shoulders. The depth of the violent claw marks attested that Stinky would be safe regardless of where the cat had taken up residence. Hearing a noise behind her, she turned to see a man straddling the crime-scene tape, his hand clutching the knob on the door. Her eyes were drawn to the spider-web veins in his broad nose.

Dan Combs, he said. I’m the building manager. He came toward her wearing a sleeveless white undershirt with a scoop neck, the sides yellowed from old sweat. What can I do fer ya, ma’am? You with the poleece? Despite the early hour, his breath was laced with stale cigarettes and malt beer.

She flashed her shield and learned nothing other than he liked to dig in his ears with his forefinger and wipe his discoveries on his yellowed shirt.

"How soon can I